Do you sit down a read, y'know, stuff on paper?

[meat]

I noticed I spend literally all day, from waking to sleep, in front of this laptop. I have a lot of books and magazines on the shelves, and I used to do nothing but read books as a child. Now I never read anything longer than 3 pages. The thing is those art books, magazines, and even prose have invaluable information that aren't online, but the childhood patience seem to have died forever.

So I'm just curious how many of you sit down and read paper books and magazines? How long do you do that each time? How often? Is reading dead?

[EduardoGaray]

i used to read a lot back then, all sorts of stuff from fantasy novels to history and philosophy books, now i kinda feel like you, i have one of those fancy amazon readers with a lot of books loaded i just dont find the time.
The only thing i still read frequently are the manga volumes i have physically, those doesnt count as books, but its still reading haha.

[darktiste]

I read manga online and read some fantasy and sci book in physic since i have the time and i try to go outside and read when the weather let me do so that i can enjoy the weather and some good book.

I like to force my self to buy some book so that it help me read them but that not a 100% sucess method to make me read since there is so much to see now a day. I think it important to be aware of how much we focus on specific thing and try to diversifiy the activity we have. I personally think i improve since i cut into stuff like facebook.I also think that people should have there offline time where they sketch on paper and do some relaxing stuff because i find that being on the computer seem to make me rush to find anything of interest.Also being outside without a computer put me outside of my confort zone and that good.

But the best thing about taking the time to read is that it pratice the imagination(prefer book to manga sometime).

[MikkelMulr]

I had the same thought not too long ago, I have a wall of books at this point because I keep buying them but never get through any of them because doing stuff on my comp feels more important. But I started taking time away from the computer to do other stuff, mostly because I started getting headaches from staring at the screen for so long and I'll either read or sketch in a physical sketchbook for once. Pro-tip for getting more reading done, leave a book in the bathroom lol I'll bang out whole chapters per trip sometimes and come back with a bunch of images in my head to draw.

[Amit Dutta]

I read all the time. Fiction and non fiction, Paper and digital, though i do admit more digital...only because it's more portable. I love it and could never stop reading, though the art + working full time thing did get in the way a lot. I found that developing a routine of sorts helps to be consistent, like reading before bed, or maybe on a commute, or during lunches.

You make time for what you enjoy and value so maybe try take a weekend and read something you are pretty sure you'll like cover to cover to regain that voracious appetite.

Also nothing better than music or a good book to stimulate your own ideas too. And if that wasn't enough reason to force yourself to do it, just remember there is no way you could read all the amazing books out there in three or four lifetimes. If you read two books a week for the next 40 years, that would only be a little over 4000 books....not a lot.....so you may as well get cracking because time to enjoy them is diminishing every day :p. And in terms of laptop distraction..There is literally nothing online anywhere that can beat the enjoyment of a great book. I know. I've searched the entire internet....it's 70% boobs and 30% cats

[meat]

"...something you are pretty sure you'll like cover to cover..." Well, ahem, somehow, by now, it's gone from a whole lot of things when I was a kid, down to mostly boobs. I hate growing up.

But getting the habit back slowly by some non-fiction lately: Born to Run, Save the Cat. The only fiction that can hold my interest now a days are either murder mystery, or that other thing I just mentioned.

[Amit Dutta]

"...something you are pretty sure you'll like cover to cover..." Well, ahem, somehow, by now, it's gone from a whole lot of things when I was a kid, down to mostly boobs. I hate growing up.

The process of growing up in the current education system may have beaten it out of you a bit. Many of the things that are of great value that we do as kids, natural openess and inquisitiveness, get minimized and reduced by iterating them through a list of banal hoops that one has to jump through in order to "get into a profession" and become a productive conditioned "employable" member of society.
Inquisitiveness, Creativity, free exploration, uncensored thought are all things we used to do naturally as children but eventually get beaten out of us by the pressure to fit within a particular mold and on a pre-defined track. It is quite a debilitating thing to go through.

Maybe you could reread some of the things that used to excite you as a kid and see if that jogs your inner child? Or maybe we need a reading intervention for you, where we assign you a book and you have to read it within a week :) I totally believe you can bring your natural childlike self back...it probably hasn't really been beaten out, but buried.

[Chachava]

I always read for an hour or so before I go to bed (unless I've been to the pub, in which case I pass out before I get the chance, doesn't happen often these days though). I have a real fixation with Stephen King, I've spent the last few years trying to collect his entire written works, mainly via charity shops. I've managed to get the majority of them, but I still have a few left that I'm going to have to buy new. I also absolutely love Douglas Adams' 'Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy', and a couple of the Tom Clancy books. I quite often spend an hour or two looking through my 'art of' books and my other art books.

As far as the digital vs physical question. I would much rather read a physical book than an ebook any day. I spend way too much of my time sat in front of a screen as it is, reading gets me away from that for a while.

[StardustLarva]

I also absolutely love Douglas Adams' 'Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy', and a couple of the Tom Clancy books.

Awesome, I too am a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide. I also love Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, the other series by Adams.

I read often, it's usually what I'm doing if I'm not drawing or on my computer. I'm fond of writers such as Garry Kilworth, Margaret Atwood (read her MaddAddam trilogy if you haven't already, it's amazing), Chris Beckett and Hermann Hesse. I also read non-fiction philosophy and zoology books. At the moment I'm currently reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, which I'm enjoying thus far.

I much prefer reading physical books over e-books; I just love the feeling of holding a book and flicking through the pages. Plus the smell, I love the smell of books. Anyone else find that? Also just because I like collecting books and arranging them on my shelves.